Murata on Mars: Exploring the red planet with Ingenuity

Space might be the final frontier, but thanks to advances in technology over the past decades, humanity is taking significant steps in exploring it. The recent missions to Mars are a poignant example of this, with NASA’s Perseverance rover and its drone Ingenuity achieving several world firsts during their first year on the planet.

Both machines operate in highly challenging conditions, constantly pushing technological boundaries. The rover’s first contact with Mars is a good example: it used onboard AI to find the optimal landing spot, making autonomous real-time decisions regarding its journey. In Mars, autonomous technologies are essential as they are the only way of enabling real-time actions due to the enormous distances involved.

While Perseverance's task is information and sample gathering, Ingenuity explores flight conditions and the technologies required to operate flight systems on the planet. This is crucial for the success of future missions: on a vast planet with uneven terrain, flying is a much faster and easier mode of transport than driving. However, the unique circumstances present various challenges to the technology used.

Addressing new challenges

First, the atmosphere differs significantly from ours, with a density of just 1% of Earth’s. Such low density means that the helicopter rotors need to spin at 2400 RPM to generate the lift required. That’s why Ingenuity was designed to weigh just under 2 kilos to allow it to achieve powered flight. The atmospheric conditions were simulated at NASA’s laboratories as accurately as possible, which helped assure the engineers that the drone could take off, hover, and move around on Mars.

Secondly, the uneven terrain means that the technology used in the drone had to be optimised for use in those conditions. This is important because taking off and landing are the two most demanding parts of any flight. As completely level landing and take-off areas can be hard to find on the rocky planet, Ingenuity had to be equipped with technology to facilitate safe take-off in multiple conditions and directions when vertical lift-off is impossible.

Enabling flight on Mars

When designing its technology, NASA has chosen to use Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components where possible, including in Ingenuity. This has allowed Murata’s electronics expertise, particularly its Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors, to play a role in helping Ingenuity reach its goals.

The helicopter’s Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) architecture is built for autonomous operation. It provides directional commands for each stage of flight, collects navigational data from onboard sensors, and interfaces with the drone’s actuators. The sensors and actuator interface use a ProASIC field-programmable gate array (FPGA), featuring two microcontroller units (MCUs), and the FPGA switches between the two MCUs if a fault is detected.

The sensor suite also includes two 3-axis Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), which include an accelerometer and a gyroscope, and a time-of-flight (Lidar) altimeter to assist with vertical positioning. Here, Murata’s SCA100T MEMS inclinometer supports the IMUs before each flight by calibrating the offsets. It has been developed to provide instrumentation-grade performance for levelling applications and is designed to withstand mechanical shocks of up to 20,000g, making it ideal for use on the uneven terrain of Mars.

However, it’s not just the robustness of components that is a concern. They must also withstand the elements, including the extremely low night-time temperatures on Mars. This has been achieved by locating the EMC close to Ingenuity’s battery. The arrangement allows it to benefit from the battery's heating elements, enabling the components to survive temperatures of -100C.

Testing to the extreme

As the above examples highlight, the operating conditions in Mars set many challenges to technology and the embedded electronic components. By including COTS components in its devices, NASA aims to reduce the amount of customisation needed for its future technologies. At the same time, it provides manufacturers with a unique opportunity to see their devices tested in the most extreme conditions. Murata is excited to play a role in this development and proud to see its technology in action on Mars. The pioneering applications can also give additional assurance to the engineers looking for components for everyday terrestrial products: the sensors they have chosen have been put to the harshest test imaginable and successfully proven to be up to the task.

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